Good at Being Alive(16)
“Oh my god, your middle name is Roger?” Rebecca gasps before she turns to Lars. “Lars, call it off. I can’t do this.”
I take it back. No one would marry her, not without removing her vocal cords first.
Lars glances up from his phone. “Are you two done?” he asks. “I need you on your way to marital bliss fast. I’ve got a massage at three.”
We both shrug. There can’t be anything more egregious in the vows than the fact that we’ve got to say them in the first place.
Lars moves to what he apparently considers the altar and asks me to promise to love, honor, and protect her. I fight down a twitch of guilt as I agree. On the one hand, at least fifty percent of men don’t live up to these vows I’m making right now. On the other hand, if her father is watching, he’s cursing me for this entire thing.
Rebecca promises to love, honor, and cherish me, though she’s smirking as she says it, and then Katrina runs over with the forgotten rings and we repeat more words as we slide them onto each other’s fingers.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” says Lars. “You may kiss the bride.”
“Is that necessary?” I ask.
Rebecca rolls her eyes. “This marriage is already off to a roaring start.”
“It’s optional for now,” says Lars. “Okay, let’s grab some pictures and then the two of you can return to loathing each other.”
“I don’t feel that the wedding stood in our way,” I reply.
Paula steers us in front of a wall of tall, sculpted topiaries. “Theo, put your arm around her waist. Bex, rest your head on his chest.”
Standing like this with her makes me all too aware of the difference in our sizes. It’s easy to forget, given how large her personality is, that she’s physically quite small.
Her head rests against my chest, and there’s an unfortunate part of me that likes having her here like this, a baby bird tucked beneath my wing.
Stop. There would be nothing worse than taking any piece of this marriage seriously. Especially when it’s her I’ve married, because god knows she won’t do the same.
We smile at the camera; we smile at each other. She really is staggering. It would be easier if we didn’t have to make eye contact.
“Okay, final bit,” Lars says. “Katrina and Lupe here will throw birdseed while I film. And I need you to kiss. Nothing dramatic. Just turn to face each other, smile, and then kiss for the pretend crowd.”
He hits a button and the sound of clapping plays over a speaker. Katrina and Lupe, the maid who let me in, begin showering us in birdseed, and Rebecca turns, looking up at me with a flash of uncertainty in her eyes. “Try not to get an erection this time.”
I laugh despite myself and place my hands on her tiny waist before I lean down.
Her mouth is soft and warm, and her hair smells like an English garden. My palms slide to her hips—fingertips grazing the curve of her ass—and her body folds into mine as if it was made just for this purpose.
There will be a million parts of this fake marriage I’ll want to end quickly.
It’s a bad sign that this fake kiss isn’t one of them.
Bex
I slide into the back of the car and he follows. I’m probably imagining that thing in his eyes, something a little softer than what was there four days ago, and a bit…intrigued.
Yes, I’m imagining it.
But my god, he kisses well. He kisses so well I’d be willing to overlook a whole lot of his less appealing traits in order to do it again.
The driver isn’t paying any attention to us. What would Theo do if I pressed my mouth to his stubbled jaw? Would he turn my face toward his and hold it, kissing me with that same delicious confidence of a few minutes ago?
“Hello, husband,” I say. Fuck. My voice is raspy. I sound smitten and I do not want to sound smitten. I am not smitten. Simply surprised. Possibly a little sexually deprived.
“Hello, wife. How’s marriage treating you?”
Better than I fucking expected, so far. “I’ve had worse.”
His smile fades. The blue of his eyes is positively stormy, out of nowhere. “You haven’t actually been married before, have you?”
Why the fuck would it matter? This isn’t real. Theo is constantly searching for new ways to look down on me, end of story. “Dude, I’m twenty-four. What makes you think I was already married?”
“The way you claimed to have been married just now, for starters. There’s also the jail time you served last spring, which points to some rash decision-making.”
It’s a relief to have found our regular rhythm, which mostly involves bickering. “Stop saying ‘jail time’ like I was on death row. I was in a holding cell for, like, three hours, and it was not my fault.”
The driver glances in the rearview mirror. I guess he was listening after all.
Theo is casually scrolling on his phone. “You threatened to punch a horse.”
I dismiss him with a wave of my hand. “You’re completely misrepresenting what happened.”
His laughter is quietly smug as he types out a text. “I read it straight from the police report. But by all means, let’s hear how you were falsely accused of trying to punch a horse.”
We are stuck at the light, which is good since the driver’s gaze is now glued to the rearview mirror like he’s in the front row at Hamilton and we’re the show.